


The Third Will Do

by jashinist_feminist



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gossip, Invasion of Privacy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 22:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21169274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jashinist_feminist/pseuds/jashinist_feminist
Summary: Sasori grows curious about the man behind the kage...





	The Third Will Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shipcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipcat/gifts).

> Happy birthday lovely kitty! We are kickstarting a week of celebrating YOU! Please enjoy some...SASOTHIRD! <3

_ What is your name? _

_ The Third will do. _

* * *

He had to have a name.

Sasori’s sandalled feet pattered along the sandy roads of Suna, half-closed eyes gazing down at the floor. If he didn’t look at people, people didn’t think he was listening. And if they didn’t think he was listening, they spoke more, and Sasori heard their secrets.

The sand was compact from the thousands of feet that made their way through the streets every day. Sasori’s were no different. His toes peeked under his sandals, the filed nails smooth and round. Sasori frowned as he noticed a round rind of grime underneath the nail bed, from the kicking up of the dirt as he walked.

Tonight he would soak his feet, he decided, before letting his mind drift back to more interesting matters. He would take a bath, a long hot bath steaming with fragrant oils, and think to himself of his favourite subject.

The Third.

He  _ had  _ to have a name.

Sasori sighed, irritably. He could listen to everyone’s else’s gossip, all their idle chatter, but the one person, the one subject, who he wanted to hear, was surprisingly still and silent.

Maybe that  _ was  _ what made him so interesting.

* * *

The Third was out of the office. That was useful. As kazekage, he didn’t  _ need  _ to train with the younger and less experienced shinobi, but he did anyway, as a show of support to his troops and to encourage their loyalty.

Sasori felt his heart jolt for a reason he could not understand. Was this sentimentality?

All around him, everyone else had their heads down to do work. Pens scratched against scrolls, hushed conversations bubbled below the accepted line of silence.

Everyone but Sasori had something to do.

Sasori clamoured up from his work desk, and paced through the building. If anyone asked, he would tell them he had gone to fetch some water in the blistering Sunan afternoon heat.

At the door, Sasori stopped. He reached out, and pushed at the door to the Third’s study. It was unlocked. Sasori raised an eyebrow at the arrogance and presumption. How could the Third think that no one would want to intrude on his personal study?

Or maybe the man knew that a lock would incense rumours where there would otherwise be none.

Sasori hummed to himself as he considered it, and stepped inside.

* * *

The Third’s personal study...oh it was beautiful. Sasori had never seen the First’s, and the Second’s had been as gaudy as his dragon tattoo, always changing, always being improved upon. The Third’s was tastefully decorated, an understated elegance brought to life. Nothing seemed to be out of place, all was tidied and in order. The upholstery was all deep blue velvets and the furniture a deep mahogany wood. Sasori let his hand drift across the fabric, imagining the man lounging there in his rooms. He inhaled, breathing in the warm scent of the Third. A slight metallic scent, from his magnetic release, and burnt incense.

It was perfect.

And so Sasori savoured it.

* * *

Not one to let the precious afternoon pass wasted, Sasori rifled through the various items on the Third’s desk, picking up a ruby gem. He held it to the light, and it winked. Sasori smiled at that, wondering what had drawn the Third to the red. He placed it back where it belonged, and then poured over the books on the shelves towards the back of the room. Sasori even spied a few of his favourites from childhood, and took a sharp intake of breath, remembering his mother reading to him as a small boy.

He blinked, realising his eyes had grown wet. Sasori put it down due to the dusk he was disturbing from the books, and let them alone. There would be fingerprints, if he was not too careful.

Sasori left the books, and then turned back to the desk, glancing down at the drawers. He perched in the Third’s chair, imagining how the cushions moulded to his form as he worked, as he wrote, as he signed forms, as he thought and made decisions for Suna. Sasori reclined back, imagining the Third’s body curled beneath his, Sasori a tiny teaspoon, the Third, a ladle.

The drawers remained untouched.

Sasori felt giddy with excitement in a manner he had not in years, perhaps not since he was a boy and he saw his parents returning through Granny Chiyo’s window. His hands thrummed with excitement as he bent down to the drawers, clicked the lock, and oh,  _ there _ .

Sasori settled down cross-legged, forcing himself to be calm. He flicked past Reto Notama’s file, the first kazekage, humming as he skimmed the details. Then came Shamon, the second’s. Sasori would always be grateful to the second for his interest and care to puppetry, but for some reason he’d always found the man boring. Maybe his aesthetic just didn’t suit Sasori’s personal taste. The facial tattoo had seemed so cliche, almost as if the man was trying to hard to seem intimidating.

And the Third, there had to be the Third. They had to be all together.

One. Two. Three.

But all Sasori saw was One and Two.

The door to the office opened.

“Is there a reason why you are rummaging through Lord Third’s files?” demanded Rasa.

Sasori glowered at Rasa. “Is there a reason you’re barging into Lord Third’s private study uninvited?”

Rasa blustered, while Sasori flicked the folders closed.

“I’m the head of the puppets corps. Lord Third told me I could research some of the second’s techniques. The man’s legacy was improvement. It would be his wish that I continued his studies into puppetry,” said Sasori steadily. Inside, a dead weight sunk to the very bottom of his stomach, that his secret, special moment alone with the Third’s files had been interrupted.

Rasa looked completely unconvinced.

“Those are the top secret, confidential files of the kazekage,” he repeated.

“Why do you care?” spat Sasori. As far as he knew, Rasa was a treasurer, a general in battle, but that was it. “Want to put yours in too?”

Now Rasa blustered. “No. I have no such ambition. But maybe you do.”

Sasori actively laughed, the sound so foreign and unnerving, that Rasa blustered even more.

“Like said,” glowered Sasori, slamming shut the cupboard. “I was looking for the second’s file.”

* * *

A change of tact might be needed. That the Third’s files were not with the First and the Second’s was a key indicator in itself, and a mystery that needed unravelling. Sasori drummed his nails against his own desk in his workstation while the junior puppeteers fiddled about, and racked his brain.

Damn Rasa. If not for his arrival, Sasori could have happily spent another hour perusing for where or what the Third had done with his file.

* * *

It came to him a few days later, as he tidied his apartment, putting away completed puppets. He had long since left Granny Chiyo’s home, and found a place he could call his own. It was much easier and calmer for his research, and he could study whatever it was that he liked, without her inconvenient intrusion.

Sasori had finished sealing a batch, when it came to him.

Seals.

Of course.

Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

The Third was talented at seals. He must have hidden his own file.

Sasori exhaled, settling in his new plan. It would be risky, to search the kazekage’s office again, especially now that Rasa had already caught him once. But Sasori knew that he was closer than ever, and that the delicious treat that were the kazekage’s secrets had to be his. Sasori felt closer to the man by simply thinking of him, and if he knew his name...he could whisper it on his lips all night long.

Sasori waited, even though it ached and pained him, until the kazekage clamoured up from the lunch table and announced he would be training the genin for the day. Sasori waited until the man’s blue robes swished away, to change into more suitable combat gear, until he left the lunch room, turning away from the workshop where his puppeteers were waiting.

He felt his way around the office, palms flat against each surface. He knew that he was just as talented at sealing and unsealing, and certainly on a par with the Third. All he had to do was look, and  _ feel _ .

* * *

There. Right there. Back in the drawer he had so eagerly raided all those weeks ago. Sasori unlocked it, pulled it open, feeling the seal. Beneath the first and second’s files, at the bottom of the cupboard, lay a thin strip of wood, disguised as simply the bottom of the drawer. Hidden nicely in plain sight.

Sasori lifted it, his eyes reading the kanji carved into the dark wood.

San.

Three.

The Third.

_ What is your name? _

_ The Third will do. _

Sasori took a deep breath, and placed his thumb to the kanji.

* * *

The Third’s robes billowed behind him, his sandals pacing through the corridors of the kazekage tower. Something had twigged inside him, and he knew.

He just  _ knew _ .

The Third pushed open the door to his study, his narrow yellow eyes taking it all in.

Sasori Akasuna crouched on the floor, his file spread before him, as he perused through the words like it was a particularly fascinating novel. There was a dreamy yet defiant expression on his face, and he glanced up at the Third as if the Third had simply asked if he wanted sugar with his tea.

“Melih,” said Sasori simply.

Hot rage flooded through the Third’s body, and his hands itched to slap Sasori. And yet there was a crushing sensation in his chest, that made him want to implode on himself, and sink to the floor, clasping Sasori in his arms. And then there were the hot tears welling behind his eyes, that threatened to explode in a way that was not becoming of a kage, or even a shinobi.

* * *

“Get OUT!” roared Melih.

Sasori startled, his eyes growing wide, giving him the appearance of a lamb caught in a snare.

“OUT!” Melih roared again.

Sasori slowly laid down the files, before climbing to his feet.

Melih felt his nostrils flaring with anger, as Sasori trotted past nonchalantly. It took all the strength within him not to seize Sasori in his arms, to slap him, fall to his knees and sink his face against Sasori’s stomach and rock back and forth.

“Leave,” ordered Melih, words spoken in haste tumbling from his lips. “Leave now. Never come back. I don’t want to see your face in the kazekage tower ever again.”

Sasori blinked, before his eyes narrowed back to his usual expression. He drifted down the corridor, his steady pace never increasing or decreasing. Even as Melih’s chest heaved, he knew that this would not be the end of it. Never before had he lost his composure like that, finding silent fury and cold treatment to be far more effective.

* * *

And now Sasori had found a weapon.

His birth. His story. His name.

**Author's Note:**

> Bad Sasori! What a nosy little monster he is!


End file.
